[Tammy8]

I have a question- how would Saudi "hillbillys" manage to get VISAS to come here to go to college, and manage to get by for 6 months before this stunt? You may think this is innocent, and they lie to save face?

Give me a break.

[muawiyah]

The Saudis have government programs set up to help desert tribesmen go to places to get advanced educations (and they also have schools in Saudi).

Experts running these programs help the students get visas and transportation. The government pays the tuition, books, fees, room and board, etc.

6 months in-country in Deutschland I still didn't realize you could pee on the streets in any town in the country if you were willing to pay the 5 DM fine directly to the cops. Actually, I still didn't know about cops collecting fines on the spot ~ a really alien idea to an American GI.

I also thought an "open faced sandwich" was simply one short the second piece of bread.

I doubt a Saudi desert dweller would be any more astute than I was at roughly the same age.

Oh, yeah, we almost caught a streetcar in Vienna (while on a short leave) to the Ostbahnhof ~ that was in the former Soviet administered zone of occupation. No problem in that except it was a "local" and would have taken hours to get there ~ still, GIs can be silly ~ a week later a couple of them got caught on the big Ferris Wheel in Prater Park. Who knew it was a piece of junk?

Sorry, I really can relate to these young shepherds trying the yellow buses!

[STARWISE]

Thank God .. some common sense for the time being.

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Judge Revokes Bail For Saudi Bus Riders

May 21, 2006

TAMPA - A judge revoked bail for two Saudi men arrested Friday for boarding a school bus and riding to Wharton High.

Initially, Mana Saleh Almanajam, 23, and Shaker Mohsen Alsidran, 20, were held in Orient Road Jail on bails of $250 each on misdemeanor trespassing charges. Circuit Judge Monica Sierra decided to hold them at a court appearance Saturday so investigators could dig deeper into their pasts.

A friend of the two University of South Florida students tried to post their bail Friday night, said Ahmed Bedier, Tampa director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, but a jail clerk told the friend that they couldn't be released because they were under an immigration hold until a hearing Saturday morning.

At the hearing, Sierra agreed with a prosecutor that she needed to know more about them before she could feel comfortable releasing them.

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